For Elise

by Sarah M. Eden

  Cover image © Dave Curtis, courtesy Trevillion Images

  Cover design copyright © 2014 by Covenant Communications, Inc.

  Author photo © 2014 Claire Waite Photography

  Published by Covenant Communications, Inc.

  American Fork, Utah

  Copyright © 2014 by Sarah M. Eden

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any format or in any medium without the written permission of the publisher, Covenant Communications, Inc., P.O. Box 416, American Fork, UT 84003. The views expressed within this work are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect

  the position of Covenant Communications, Inc., or any other entity.

  This is a work of fiction. The characters, names, incidents, places, and dialogue are either products of the author’s imagination, and are not to be construed as real, or are used fictitiously.

  First Printing: September 2014

  ISBN-13: 978-1-62108-861-5

  To Zelda, queen of pliers, and Bob, king of citrus,

  for a lifetime of love, support, and encouragement.

  Chapter One

  May 1815

  Cheshire, England

  Miles Linwood’s enthusiasm for lace was decidedly lacking. Fortunately for his sister, his patience was not.

  “What do you think of this particular pattern?” Beth held up a corner of white lace. It looked precisely like every other length of white lace he’d ever seen, including the dozen or so she’d asked his opinion of that day alone.

  Still, a brother had to indulge his sister or risk earning her lace-fueled wrath. “It is very nice, Beth.”

  “Nice?” she scoffed. “Have you no greater compliment than ‘nice’?”

  “I did say very nice.”

  Beth was clearly dissatisfied.

  Miles smiled. “Forgive my ignorance of lace and its finer qualities. I am certain your Langley would not have proven such a disappointment. But you know your bumbling brother too well to expect anything but woeful ignorance out of me.”

  “Yes, my Langley is rather wonderful.” Beth summoned the same besotted smile she’d first produced the day she’d been introduced to the gentleman she would later marry. The passage of seven years obviously hadn’t lessened their attachment to one another. “And you, dearest brother, are the bumblingest marquess in the entire kingdom.”

  Her teasing barb brought a smile to his face. “Perhaps I ought to distribute apologetic leaflets throughout England, reminding everyone that I am also the newest marquess in the entire kingdom.”

  “Toss in the fact that you are also unwed, and the ladies, at least, will forgive you almost anything.”

  “Are ye nearly ready?” The shop proprietress unceremoniously spoke across their conversation, eyeing them both impatiently. “I’ve other work to see to.”

  Miles couldn’t manage an immediate response. The impatient interruption was so unexpected from a shop owner toward a customer.

  Beth, however, pulled her dignity about her like a battle cloak and gave the woman a rather freezing look. “By all means, return to your other work. If I require your assistance, I will inform you.”

  The woman seemed to realize she’d been rude and quickly curtsied before scurrying back behind the counter.

  “I don’t remember your being so formidable, dearest sister,” Miles observed under his breath after they were alone once more in the corner of the shop. “You are absolutely terrifying. I feel an overwhelming need to pull out a pen and parchment and write out ‘I will not be rude to Beth Langley’ one hundred times using my finest penmanship.”

  Beth shook her head in amusement. “I have missed your teasing these past years, Miles. The West Indies are so very far away.”

  He had missed her as well. He had missed everything about England. “I am here now, though, enjoying my favorite activity—indeed, every gentleman’s favorite pastime.”

  “Dare I ask what that is?” Beth raised an eyebrow.

  “Why, admiring lace, of course. This one, for example” —he fingered a length of white lace— “is simply divine. Such artistry. Such fine loopingness.”

  “Loopingness?”

  “That is the term true connoisseurs use,” Miles insisted. “Surely you knew that.”

  She swatted at him playfully. Miles wandered to the shop windows. They hadn’t intended to stop in this tiny town, but a broken wheel on Langley’s traveling carriage necessitated it. The town was too small for any diversions other than standing about in the draper’s pretending to be enamored of laces and ribbons.

  “Ye’ll have to wait,” the proprietress hissed at someone. “I’ve got payin’ customers in the shop now.”

  The proprietress, red in the face, shooed away a very humbly dressed woman and her little girl. The two, clearly poverty stricken, slipped quietly into the far corner of the large shop.

  As if feeling Miles’s gaze, the child, likely no more than three years old, looked over her shoulder and directly at him. Her gaze dropped, but only for a moment before she raised her eyes to him again. He could hardly make out her features, hidden as they were behind an oversized bonnet, but he knew she was looking at him.

  Miles smiled at her. She tipped her head a bit to the side, still watching him closely from across the room. He waved, but she didn’t return the gesture. She held tightly to her mother’s hand without looking away from him for even a moment. What was it that had captured her attention so entirely?

  “Is this not the oddest pattern you have ever seen on a muslin?” Beth said from somewhere beside him.

  “Yes. Odd,” he answered without really seeing it.

  Beth moved away again, continuing her perusal. The little girl still watched Miles. Near-black curls hung about her shoulders. He smiled again. Was she smiling under the shadow of her bonnet?

  He leaned against the wall near the window, keeping his attention on the child and her mother. Only the little girl faced him. He couldn’t see anything beyond her mother’s back.

  “Well, I have seen about all I care to see in here.” Beth rejoined Miles at the window. “Shall we rejoin Langley on the hope that a working carriage is awaiting us?”

  Miles nodded.

  “Are ye leavin’?” the proprietress called after them.

  “Indeed,” Beth replied before gliding through the door Miles held open for her.

  Before Miles let the door close, he glanced back in time to see the shopkeeper turn to the mother and child in the corner and bark out, “Might as well come dig through the scraps now. Jus’ lost me most promisin’ customers.”

  Dig through the scraps. Poor little thing.

  “Where shall we go now, Miles?” Beth linked her arm with his. “Perhaps there is a milliners. Or a haberdashery.”

  “Perhaps,” Miles muttered.

  Dig through the scraps. The idea sat like lead on his heart. Somehow, he couldn’t bear the thought of that little girl living in such want. If he put his mind to it, he could devise a way to discreetly discover her name and her most pressing needs. His newly acquired wealth ought to be put to some good.

  “What has you so solemn, Miles?” Beth asked. “That last muslin was rather horrifying, but this seems an overreaction.”

  He attempted to smile at the jest, but even after four years of separation, she knew him too well to be fooled.

  “The little girl in the shop?”

  Miles hadn’t realized Beth had even noticed.

  “They both looked so frail and ragged,” Beth said. “And the little one was so intent upon studying you.”

  “I find myself unable to rid my mind of her,” he said.

  “And now you are wondering what must be done to help the poor child. Sometimes, Miles, there is nothing you
can do.”

  He knew all too well how true that was. “I wish I could though.”

  Beth squeezed his arm. “You never could resist a girl with dark curls.”

  A girl with dark curls. For him, that description would only ever bring to mind one person. “Sweet Elise,” he whispered.

  His heart would never stop breaking for her. His dear, young friend he’d lost at such a tender age. How he missed her and mourned her and wondered what might have become of her after all these years.

  “Do you remember the time we decided to sell hot chestnuts to the neighborhood children?” Beth asked as they began walking toward the smithy.

  Miles remembered well. “We burnt at least half of our inventory. So we attempted to sell the remainder at twice our original asking price.”

  “And Thomas Hatfield accused us of extortion and who knows what else because our prices were so ridiculously high.” Beth took up the retelling. “Then Elise gave you her two pence, probably all the pin money she had, and said she wanted to buy a chestnut. But you, softhearted little boy that you were, couldn’t bring yourself to sell her one at such an unfair price, and the whole scheme came down around us.”

  “She ruined more of my mischievous plans than Mother, Father, and Eton combined.” Miles couldn’t look back on those years without sadness mixing with the laughter. “She either made me feel guilty as the devil or got herself into a scrape before I had a chance to get myself into one, and then she begged me to save her from whatever she’d done.”

  “And you couldn’t resist her hopeful smile.”

  Miles’s smile disappeared, as did the light banter between the two of them. “She still haunts me.”

  “I know.” Beth leaned her head against his arm. “I think of her often.”

  “I think of her every day. Every single day.”

  The three of them had grown up practically as siblings. Miles had taught Elise to swim. In return, Elise had taught him to crochet, quite against his will. He’d spent the harrowing days of his mother’s final illness with Elise at Furlong House. She was his most faithful correspondent while he was at Eton. They had been the very best of friends.

  But when she was fifteen, Elise had disappeared. All efforts to find her had proven fruitless. She’d simply vanished.

  “Miles,” Beth urgently whispered. “Look. Just there.” She motioned with her head.

  A few paces ahead, down a narrow side street they’d only just reached, was the girl he’d seen at the drapers. She was watching him again. Miles offered a little wave. The girl and her mother stopped at one of the many doors along the small street. While her mother unlocked the door, the little girl continued to look at him from beneath her raggedy bonnet. Then, hesitantly but with an air of desperation, she reached out toward him as if begging him to come help her.

  Miles’s heart cracked. Such need and weight for so tiny a child.

  “I mean to see if I can do anything for them,” he told Beth.

  “They might not be willing to accept it,” Beth warned him. “Pride is a difficult thing. And men of position are generally viewed with suspicion amongst the lower class.”

  “I have to at least try,” he said.

  “Of course you do.” She squeezed his arm. “The inn is just at the end of this road. You do what you can. I’ll wait for you there.”

  Miles waited until he saw Beth enter the inn before turning back to the humble door the little girl had gone through. He could hear low voices inside. An unexpected surge of nervousness clutched him. How would he be received? The effort might be futile.

  But that little girl, who reminded him so very much of his long-lost Elise, needed him. He felt in his bones that she did. He couldn’t turn his back on her.

  He summoned his resolve and knocked firmly. He’d simply appeal to the girl’s parents to allow him to help. Surely they would set their pride aside for the sake of their own child.

  The hinges protested as the door slowly opened. Miles arranged his features in as unthreatening a look of friendliness as he could manage. The girl’s mother peeked around the door.

  “Good afternoon,” he said. “Is—”

  He choked on the words when she looked up fully into his face. She was likely no more than twenty, with thick, dark-brown curls and blue eyes. No freckles spattered the bridge of her nose, and her hair was pulled up instead of hanging about her shoulders, but Miles knew her in an instant. His heart stopped even as his mind spun violently. All color fled from her face. She took a step backward, staring at him as though she’d seen a ghost. In a very real way, he actually had.

  His lips moved silently as he searched for words. Any words. In the end, all he could whisper was her name. “Elise.”

  Chapter Two

  He reached out, desperate to be certain she was real. But she moved out of his reach.

  “Do you not recognize me?” Miles couldn’t countenance that she wouldn’t. Other than the usual differences between a nineteen-year-old and a barely twenty-four-year-old, he hadn’t changed much since they’d last seen each other.

  Her mouth tightened. She didn’t look away, but neither did her expression change from bone-deep apprehension. Apprehension? Was she not at all happy to see him?

  “Bring the young man in, Ella,” a quavering voice instructed from inside.

  The door opened wider, and “Ella” stepped aside to allow him room to pass. He doffed his hat and stooped as he crossed the threshold. After a moment, his eyes adjusted to the relative dimness of the damp interior. The space was small and sparsely furnished.

  An older woman sat bundled in shawls in a rocker by the fire, studying him. Miles offered an inclination of his head and an uneasy smile. His gaze returned quickly to Elise. He could hardly believe she stood so near, that he’d found her after so many years. Other than a fleeting look of alarm when their eyes had first met, Elise had still given no indication that she knew him at all.

  “Well, child,” the older woman said. “Do you mean to introduce me, or will you be standing there like you don’t remember your manners?”

  Elise stepped forward but didn’t immediately speak. She looked like a cornered fox, poised for flight but afraid the slightest movement would bring the hounds down on her. Her eyes locked with the silver-haired woman, who nodded.

  “This here’s Mama Jones.” She motioned to the seated woman.

  Miles tried not to gape. Elise sounded so different. Her cultured and refined accent had entirely disappeared. She spoke like a tenant, like a lower servant. She’d made a completely inept introduction, not at all what he knew her governess had taught her. And yet, she absolutely had to be Elise. The resemblance was too great.

  Miles remembered his own manners and bowed to the older woman. “A pleasure to meet you, ma’am,” he said, hoping his confusion wasn’t too obvious.

  “And you, sir,” she answered, studying him closer before turning her eyes back to Elise.

  The young woman was Elise, wasn’t she? He felt suddenly unsure.

  “Ella?” the older woman pressed.

  Ella took a heavy and shaky breath. Why did she not look even remotely pleased to see him? This could not be his Elise.

  “Forgive me. I—” he began but was cut off.

  “No need apologizin’,” Mama Jones—that was the only name he had for her—told him.

  “But I wonder if perhaps I’ve been mistaken.” He looked more closely at Ella. How could she not be Elise Furlong? He’d have sworn to her identity.

  Then, suddenly, she spoke again. “This is Miles Linwood.”

  The words came out so rushed Miles almost didn’t put together what she’d said. This is Miles Linwood. She knew him.

  “Elise! It is you.” He reached for her again.

  She backed away from him, eyeing him almost contemptuously. When had she ever looked at him with contempt? Miles couldn’t reconcile the Elise who stood in front of him with the sweet, dear friend he’d once known. Without fail, she’d tos
sed herself into his embrace every time he’d returned from school. She’d sneaked into his room when he was nine because a sore throat had kept them apart for a week and she’d missed him too much to stay away. And now, four years of separation and she didn’t seem the least interested in being reunited. She almost seemed angry that he was there.

  “You do remember me, don’t you?” he asked, perplexed.

  “I know who it is you are.” Again that strange accent. What had happened to her? Why was she shying away from him? And why was there an edge of hostility in her tone?

  “Haven’t you even a smile for me?” Miles could do little more than watch her in bewilderment. “Pon rep, Elise. We’ve known each other all our lives, and I haven’t seen you in more than four years. Are you not at all happy to see me?”

  She didn’t answer.

  “At least tell me how you came to be here, so far from home.”

  “This is me home.”

  Miles looked over at Mama Jones. “I . . . I don’t understand.” He held his hands out in frustration.

  “She is m’ daughter-in-law,” Mama Jones said. “Married to me poor Jim. He was a soldier.”

  Elise is married? Was married? In his mind, she was still the fifteen-year-old girl she’d been the last time he’d seen her.

  “Was married?” Miles asked, trying to piece the story together.

  “Jim was cut down by them Frenchies in some foreign place. Now I just have Ella an’ the girl.”

  “Why do you call her Ella?” She was Elise. He knew that for certain, and yet so many doubts spun about in his mind.

  Elise, who had shared all of the most important moments of his life before her disappearance, clearly didn’t want him there asking questions. Something had happened. Something had changed her.

  “Go get the girl, Ella,” Mama Jones instructed gently.

  “No,” Elise answered emphatically. It was the first spark of feeling he’d seen in her.

  “He’ll wish to meet her.”

  “I do not wish for him to meet her. An’ I’ll thank you not to drop more of m’ troubles in his ears.”

  “Ella.” The single word came out as a command.